Thank you, Minister.
Mr. Chair, as you've seen in the news, auto theft is really concentrated in the Montreal and Toronto areas. CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre, records data on automobiles, stolen property and licence plate numbers. It's a system that police across the country use on average 300,000 times a day, I think.
The RCMP has managed to connect the CPIC database to that of Interpol. The Interpol organization is made up of 196 countries. So, now 196 countries have access to the databases, and over 150,000 vehicles are registered in the CPIC portal.
We have seen results. Since we connected the CPIC portal to Interpol in mid-February, over 840 serial number checks have been carried out by our partners abroad. This creates an alert at the Interpol office in Ottawa. From there, foreign investigators request additional information. I think we've received between 50 and 100 requests so far.
The RCMP wants to start analyzing the breakdown or distribution of vehicles internationally.